WSWG

WSWG
(semi-satellite of WCTV
Thomasville, Georgia-
Tallahassee, Florida)

Valdosta/Albany/
Moultrie/Tifton, Georgia
United States
City Valdosta, Georgia
Branding WSWG (general)
WCTV Eyewitness News
WSWG 2 (on DT2)
CW 44 (on DT3)
Slogan Coverage You
Can Count On
Dare to Defy (on DT3)
Channels Digital: 43 (UHF)
(to move to 31 (UHF))
Virtual: 44 (PSIP)
Subchannels 44.1 CBS
44.2 MyNetworkTV/MeTV
44.3 CW+
Affiliations CBS (2006–present)
Owner Gray Television
(to be sold to Marquee Broadcasting upon Gray's purchase of Raycom Media[1][2])
(Gray Television Licensee, LLC)
First air date December 24, 1980 (1980-12-24)
Call letters' meaning We're SouthWest Georgia
Sister station(s) WCTV, WJHG-TV, WECP-LD, WTVY, WRGX-LD
Former callsigns WVGA (1980–1994)
WGVP (1994–2001)
WVAG (2001–2005)
Former channel number(s) Analog:
44 (UHF, 1980–2007)
Former affiliations ABC (1980–1992)
Dark (1992–1995)
The WB (1995–1997)
UPN (1997–2006)
Transmitter power 50 kW
1000 kW (CP)
Height 253 m (830 ft)
258.4 m (848 ft) (CP)
Class DT
Facility ID 28155
Transmitter coordinates 31°10′18.7″N 83°21′56.6″W / 31.171861°N 83.365722°W / 31.171861; -83.365722
Licensing authority FCC
Public license information:
(semi-satellite of WCTV
Thomasville, Georgia-
Tallahassee, Florida) Profile

(semi-satellite of WCTV
Thomasville, Georgia-
Tallahassee, Florida) CDBS
Website wswg.tv

WSWG is a CBS-affiliated television station licensed to Valdosta, Georgia, United States and serving Southwestern Georgia. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 43 (or virtual channel 44 via PSIP) from a transmitter, in unincorporated Cook County, northeast of Adel. Owned by Gray Television, the station maintains an advertising sales office on 2nd Avenue Southwest in Moultrie.

Although it identifies itself as a separate station in its own right, it is actually operated as a semi-satellite of Thomasville-licensed CBS affiliate WCTV (channel 6). WSWG simulcasts most of WCTV's newscasts, and clears most of its syndicated programming (though in some cases at different times). There are also some programs that only air on WSWG while some are only seen on WCTV. WSWG also airs separate station identifications and commercials. Master control and most internal operations of WSWG are based at WCTV's studios in Tallahassee, Florida on Halstead Boulevard (along I-10). WSWG technically serves as the CBS affiliate for Albany, but its over-the-air broadcasting radius just misses Albany itself. As a result, the station must rely on cable for most of its viewership. However, WCTV's more powerful digital signal reaches Albany.

History

Former logo for WCTV's Valdosta news bureau.

The station first began operating on December 24, 1980 as WVGA (standing for Valdosta, GeorgiA), the ABC affiliate for Southwestern Georgia (though Valdosta is part of the Tallahassee market). It originally operated from studios located on Norman Drive in Valdosta. Prior to that time, Albany was one of the few areas in the eastern part of the country without a clear over-the-air signal from ABC; the nearest affiliate, WECA-TV (now WTXL-TV) in Tallahassee, only provided Grade B coverage to the market. At the time, ABC was the top network in the United States.

WVGA was founded by Hi Ho Broadcasting, which also owned fellow ABC affiliate WDHN in Dothan, Alabama. The station carried a typical slate of ABC and syndicated shows. Hi Ho sold both stations to Morris Multimedia, a broadcasting company owned by the Morris Newspaper Corporation, in 1986.

The station was unable to make any headway against the region's two powerful VHF outlets, WALB-TV and WCTV. The station found it difficult to get advertising; Southwest Georgia is one of the poorest regions of the South, and there were very few businesses able to advertise on the station. By the late-1980s, WVGA was in a battle for its survival. By the start of the 1990s, it had shut down its news department and began relying on infomercials and barter programming to fill the schedule. It also began signing off following Nightline.

WVGA's fate was sealed in January 1992 when a plane crashed into its transmission tower and knocked the station off the air. Without enough money to rebuild the tower, Morris opted to fold the station's operations. This left southwest Georgia as one of the only areas on the East Coast without an ABC affiliate. Cable systems in the area piped in either WSB-TV in Atlanta, WTVM in Columbus, WCJB-TV in Gainesville, Florida, or WTXL. This changed when WALB-DT2 switched its affiliation to ABC in April 2011.

Morris sold WVGA to Tallahassee 27 Limited Partnership, owners of WTXL, in 1992, which would have revived the station as a semi-satellite of WTXL. However, that deal fell through, and in 1994, Tallahassee 27 sold the station to Hutchens Communications. Hutchens reopened the station on September 1, 1995 as WGVP, an affiliate of The WB. The station later relocated its operations to a new facility located on West Gordon Street. Prior to this station's return to the airwaves, WB programming was only available on area cable and satellite providers through Chicago-based national superstation WGN.

It switched to UPN on August 25, 1997.[3] This move came after The WB decided to air its programming only on cable in smaller markets. In 2001, the call letters were changed to WVAG. Hutchens then sold the station to Padon Communications in 2003. who in turn, sold it to Gray Television in 2005. Under Gray, the station was renamed WSWG and its operations were merged with those of WCTV.

On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced the two networks would end broadcasting and merge to form The CW. On February 22, News Corporation announced that it would start up another new network called MyNetworkTV. Gray, which had earlier planned to add a second digital subchannel on WSWG to carry CBS while keeping UPN on analog, chose instead to broadcast CBS on the analog and main digital channels starting on September 4, 2006 as a semi-satellite of WCTV; the second subchannel then began to carry MyNetworkTV. The move created a strong combined signal with just under 50% overlap. Previously, WCTV had been the default CBS affiliate in Albany for many years.

Former logo for WSWG

On January 30, 2007, WSWG's analog signal on channel 44 went dark due to a damaged transmission line at the transmitter. Rather than incur the expense of restoring a signal that would only be temporary (analog broadcasting was due to end in the United States within two years), the station requested permission to surrender its analog license and broadcast only in digital on UHF channel 43. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted the request on one year later. However, unlike its old analog signal on channel 44 (which operated at 1.7 million watts), digital channel 43 operates at only 50,000 watts (roughly equivalent to 250,000 watts for an analog transmitter) in order to protect Alabama Public Television station WGIQ in Louisville, Alabama.

The lower-powered digital signal just misses Albany proper, forcing the station to rely on cable for most of its viewership. In contrast, WCTV's digital signal does reach Albany. In early 2011, WSWG launched a third digital subchannel carrying The CW. Previously, programming from that network was seen exclusively on cable (through "WBSK") via The CW Plus which also supplies the current subchannel's programming.

On August 16, 2018, Gray announced that it would sell WSWG to Marquee Broadcasting; the deal will make it a sister station to WSST-TV (channel 22), an independent station that Marquee had earlier agreed to acquire.[2] The sale is part of Gray's acquisition of Raycom Media, owner of WALB; Gray elected to keep WALB and sell WSWG.[1] Gray had been the founder and original owner of WALB, but was forced to sell it after buying WCTV because the FCC did not allow common ownership of stations with overlapping signals prior to 1999; WALB provides a city-grade signal to most of the Georgia side of the Tallahassee market. It is unclear what will happen to the programming and operations as it would sever WSWG from its parent WCTV.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital channel is multiplexed. Despite WSWG being a semi-satellite of WCTV, its two digital subchannels are programmed separately.

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[4]
44.11080i16:9WSWG-DTMain WSWG programming / CBS
44.2480i4:3WSWG-D2MyNetworkTV & MeTV
44.3720p16:9WSWG-D3CW 44

Analog-to-digital conversion

WSWG shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 44, on January 30, 2007. This was over two years before the date of the federally-mandated transition from analog to digital broadcasts, which was originally February 17, 2009 (but was pushed back to June 12). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 43.[5] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 44.

Newscasts

WSWG clears all local newscasts from WCTV except for weeknights at 5 and 5:30. Although this station does not produce any separate Southwestern Georgia-specific segments during the simulcasted shows, WCTV does operate news bureaus in Moultrie (at WSWG's sales office) and Valdosta on East Central Avenue/U.S. 84/U.S. 221. It formerly maintained another one in Thomasville (on North Broad Street; housed in the same building as a bureau still operated by WSWG's rival, WALB).

WCTV's two reporters assigned to Southwest Georgia do not use any localized WSWG identification. Ironically, there is no actual news coverage of Albany itself provided by WCTV despite WSWG technically being its CBS affiliate. There is, however, severe weather coverage for all of the Albany market when conditions warrant (such as during a tornado warning). WCTV upgraded news production to high definition level on August 3, 2009 and the simulcasts on WSWG were included in the switch. The change made WSWG the first station in Albany to offer local news in high definition.

References

  1. 1 2 Miller, Mark K. (June 25, 2018). "Gray To Buy Raycom For $3.6 Billion". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheckMedia. Retrieved June 25, 2018.
  2. 1 2 Miller, Mark K. (August 16, 2018). "Gray Selling WSWG Albany, Ga., To Marquee". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheckMedia. Retrieved August 16, 2018.
  3. ↑ Hontz, Jenny (August 4, 1997). "Bailing out on UPN". Variety. Retrieved September 1, 2012.
  4. ↑ http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=station_search&callsign=WSWG#station
  5. ↑ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-08-29. Retrieved 2012-03-24.
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